The Torture of Children -- The World's Secret Shame

* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International * 8 December 2000
ACT 40/040/2000

"He had a pair of pliers in his hand. He kept asking where the
mobile phone was. I told him I had not seen it....He got hold
of my thumb and placed it between the pliers. He pressed it hard
and crushed my thumb. I do not remember what happened next."
Nine-year-old Firoz, victim of torture by police in Bangladesh.

Throughout the world, children are being subjected to horrificviolence and abuse, according to a new Amnesty International
report published ahead of Human Rights Day (December 10).

A part of Amnesty International's recently launched
Campaign Against Torture, the report reveals that: children are
tortured because they are caught up in wars and politicalconflict; children suspected of criminal activity are most at
risk of torture at the hands of the state; children are often
detained in conditions that pose a threat to their health and
safety, and many children face being beaten or sexually abused by
the very adults who are supposed to protect them.

"This abuse continues to be the world's secret shame, a
daily reality ignored by governments everywhere. Most children
suffer in silence, their stories never told, their tormentors
never called to account," Amnesty International said.

Entitled Hidden scandal, secret shame, the report says
that torture can have a profound impact on the body and mind of a
developing child. Those who are tortured repeatedly, or over long
periods of time, are likely to suffer permanent personality
changes. Serious physical trauma may disrupt or distort normal
growth patterns, and cause permanent weakness or disability.

"Around the world we see the same patterns of abuse:
there is little difference between how police treat children in
China and how they treat them in Brazil; there is little
difference between conditions of detention in Paraguay and
Russia; and violence against children in armed conflict is
equally devastating in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan."

At about 2am on 24 October, a dozen Israeli police, armed
with machine guns, came to arrest Bakr Sa'id, a 15 year old boy,
at his home in Kufar Kana. Four armed police officers went to
where Bakr Sa'id was sleeping and arrested the boy. Bakr Sa'id
was reportedly interrogated for severalhours in the early
morning by three interrogators in civilianclothes who shouted
and threatened him. Later in the day he was brought to court, but
his father was not allowed to speak to him. Another detainee in
court said he saw a police officer slap Bakr Sa'id in the face.

Sexual Abuse in Custody
Boys and girls in custody are vulnerable to rape and sexual
abuse, both from state agents and other inmates. Many children
try to hide the fact that they have been raped, others are simply
too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about it and many cases go
unreported and unpunished.

N.C.S., a 16-year-old Kurdish girl was detained with her
friend at police headquarters in Iskenderun, Turkey, in March
1999. She was forced to stand continuously for two days,
prevented from using the toilet and only given sour milk to
drink. During the interrogation she was beaten on the head,
genitals, buttocks and breasts, forced to roll naked in water,
suspended by the arms and hosed with pressurized cold water. She
was also subjected to a "virginity test". N.C.S. was sentenced to
a long prison term after being charged with being a member of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but typically none of the police
officers have so far been brought to justice.

Street Children
An estimated 100 million children live and work on the streets
where they are particularly vulnerable. Amnesty International
has documented torture and ill-treatment against street children
in many countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia,
Guatemala, India, Kenya, Nepal and Uganda.

Juvenile Detention Centres
Conditions in juvenile detention centres, orphanages and other
institutions can also amount to torture. A class action filed in
February in South Dakota, USA, alleged that children held in the
StateTrainingSchool in Plankington were forced to lie on their
backs, spread-eagled, on a concrete bed in an isolation cell for
hours at a time, including overnight. Girls held in this
position had been stripped naked by male staff, sometimes having
their clothes cut off with scissors.

Physical abuse is a fact of life for many young
detainees. A former inmate of the Panchito López juvenile
detention centre in Paraguay said: "Life in Panchito is hard. For
punishments there were beatings on the soles of the feet or on
the palms of the hands, or kicks in the stomach. Boys were
stripped naked and hung upside down on the patio and beaten with
sticks, or else they made you stand on your hands up against the
wall. You had to stay still like that for as long as they wanted,
if you fell down they beat you. They'd hang you from a pillar or
from the doorway. They hung me up for three hours, and all the
guards that passed by hit me. If someone does something and they
don't discover who, everyone in the block is beaten with
sticks."

Armed Conflict
Children are particularly vulnerable in situations of armed
conflict -- as child soldiers, refugees, innocent bystanders.
Many children are tortured simply because they live in an "enemy
zone", or because of the politics, religion or ethnic origin of
their family. Children have suffered on an unprecedented scale
during the nineyears of civil war in Sierra Leone -- thousands
have been killed, mutilated, abducted and forced to fight, or
raped and forced into sexual slavery.

Many children in Sierra Leone, themselves victims, have
been forced to kill, mutilate or rape, often under the influence
of drugs or alcohol or through fear. "Komba", now aged 15, was
captured by rebel forces in 1997. He told AI in June 2000 that
he was among rebel forces who attacked Freetown in January 1999:
"My legs were cut with blades and cocaine was rubbed in the
wounds. Afterwards, I felt like a big person. I saw the other
people like chickens and rats. I wanted to kill them."

Amnesty International is calling on governments around
the world to publicly condemn the torture of children whenever it
occurs, investigate all allegations of torture, ensure it is
expressly prohibited in law and that torturers are brought to
justice. The leaders of armed opposition groups should also make
clear to their forces that torture is unacceptable.

"The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most
widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, but governments
continue to fail to live up to the principles and commitments it
contains. By allowing the violence against children to continue,
we put at risk our future," the organization said.

Members of the public can join Amnesty International's
Campaign Against Torture by registering online at
www.stoptorture.org

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